Personal Information Protection Commission

Press Release

The DMC Finalizes Mediation Proposal Against SKT to Award KRW 300,000 in Damages 

- The DMC recommends SKT establish plans to safeguard privacy and prevent recurring data breaches

November 4, 2025

(This is an unofficial translation of a press release, originally prepared in Korean.
 

The Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee (DMC) held the 59th plenary meeting to finalize collective dispute mediation cases against SK Telecom Co., Ltd. (SKT) on November 3, 2025. SKT’s data breach affected around 23 million subscribers, and the mediation proposal finalized by the DMC against SKT includes:

● Paying KRW 300,000 in damages to each applicant involved in the dispute mediation cases; and 

● Enhancing privacy-safeguarding measures to prevent another data breach. 

Since April 2025, 3,998 people have filed their applications for dispute mediation, including 731 individual applications and three collective applications. The DMC’s deliberations focused on key areas of redress, including:

● Damages; 

● System improvements; 

● Suspension of violations; and 

● Restoration measures. 

The DMC announced that the amount of damages for each applicant was determined, acknowledging emotional distress arising from concerns about potential SIM swapping, disruptions and the inconvenience experienced during the Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) replacement process. The root cause of the anxiety and concerns is data leakage of 25 types of personal information, including phone numbers and international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), due to SKT’s failure to put sufficient safeguards in place as required under the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

The DMC also recommended that SKT come up with privacy-safeguarding plans across the board, including the establishment and implementation of internal management plans, to prevent similar data breaches. Such plans will help SKT comply with the PIPA.

However, the DMC saw that SKT has taken measures to prevent further data abuse or misuse by blocking data-leakage routes, such as USIM replacement. Accordingly, the DMC deemed that the violations had been suspended. Given the nature of the data breach, the DMC deemed that restoration is impracticable.

Acting Chairperson Woo Jisuk of the DMC stated, “The DMC deliberated the views and issues that need to be addressed in depth and came up with the mediation proposal. We hope that the mediation will be reached to actively redress the affected applicants.” 

Moving forward, the DMC will notify both the applicants and SKT of the mediation proposal and see if they would accept it within 15 days. If either disputant refused to accept the proposal, the case would be closed, and the mediation would end.

* A PDF file, formatted for better readability, is attached.